A search warrant filed in court showed toxicology reports found propofol in Michael Jackson's body.
Los Angeles' coroner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran reached that preliminary conclusion after reviewing toxicology results carried out on Jackson's blood, according to a search warrant and affidavit unsealed in Houston, Texas.
The affidavit outlines probable cause for search warrants of the offices of doctors who are believed to have treated Jackson.
The Associated Press is quoting a single law enforcement official, who says the L.A. County Coroner has ruled Michael Jackson's death a homicide. The Los Angeles County Coroner's office told CNN they had "no comment" on the report. An LAPD spokesman says the story did not come from their department.
The 32-page warrant said Dr. Conrad Murray, Jackson's personal physician, told a detective that he had been treating Jackson for insomnia for six weeks. Murray said each night he gave Jackson 50 mg of propofol, also known as Diprivan, diluted with the anesthetic lidocaine via an intravenous drip.
Worried that Jackson may have been becoming addicted to the drug, the Houston cardiologist said he attempted to wean him from it, putting together combinations of other drugs that succeeded in helping Jackson sleep during the two nights prior to his death.
But on June 25, other drugs failed to do the job, as he recounted to detectives in an hour-by-hour account that was detailed by detective Orlando Martinez of the Los Angeles Police Department:
-- At about 1:30 a.m., Murray gave Jackson 10 mg of Valium.
-- At about 2 a.m., he injected Jackson with 2 mg of the anti-anxiety drug Ativan.
-- At about 3 a.m., Murray then administered 2 mg of the sedative Versed.
-- At about 5 a.m., he administered another 2 mg of Ativan.
-- At about 7:30 a.m., Murray gave Jackson yet another 2 mg of Versed while monitoring him with a device that measured the oxygen saturation of a his blood.
-- At about 10:40 a.m., "after repeated demands/requests from Jackson," Murray administered 25 mg of propofol, the document said.
"Jackson finally went to sleep and Murray stated that he remained monitoring him. After approximately 10 minutes, Murray stated he left Jackson's side to go to the restroom and relieve himself. Murray stated he was out of the room for about two minutes maximum. Upon his return, Murray noticed that Jackson was no longer breathing," the affidavit said.
Efforts at CPR proved fruitless.
According to the warrant and affidavit, Murray said he was not the first doctor to give Jackson the powerful anesthetic, which the singer called his "milk." The drug has a milky appearance.
The document also cited reports from staff at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center, where Jackson's body was taken, who said Murray "admitted" to having given Jackson flumazenil to counteract the Ativan.
The document listed another five doctors and a nurse practitioner who were said to have treated Jackson.
"Detectives ... believe that the miscellaneous prescriptions, from multiple doctors ... could have contributed to his death," the document said.
It added that "it cannot be determined whether the cause of death is due to the actions of a single night and/or a single doctor, or the grossly negligent treatment of several doctors over an extended period of time."
Propofol is administered intravenously in operating rooms as a general anesthetic, the manufacturer AstraZeneca told CNN.
The drug works as a depressant on the central nervous system.
"It works on your brain," said Dr. Zeev Kain, the chair of the anesthesiology department at the University of California, Irvine. "It basically puts the entire brain to sleep."
However, once the infusion is stopped, the patient wakes up almost immediately.
"So if you're going to do this, you'd have to have somebody right there giving you the medication and monitoring you continuously," Kain said.
Dr. Hector Vila, chairman of the Ambulatory Surgery Committee for the American Society of Anesthesiologists, said he administers the drug during office procedures such as urology, dentistry and gynecology. It is also the most common anesthetic for colonoscopies, he said.
Why is this a matter for the justice system; doesn't Jackson bear some of the responsibility of his own overdose? If he wanted these drugs in this dosage and was willing to throw enough money at a doctor who would provide it, it doesn't really matter which doctor did it, because eventually one would.
ReplyDeleteCertainly this doctor who actually did administer the overdose should be subject to civil suit from the family and sanctions from the A.M.A. But let's not waste the tax dollars just to get a prosecutor his bit of glory out of the affair.